Total net profit of all public sector banks (PSBs), including SBI, PNB, Canara Bank and Bank of Baroda, fell sharply by 26.8 per cent to Rs 37,017 crore for fiscal ended March 2014 over the previous year.

These banks in which government owns more than 51 per cent had total net profit of Rs 50,583 crore in 2012-13.

This was stated by Minister of State for Finance Nirmala Sitharaman in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha.

Noting that rise in non-performing assets (NPAs) of PSBs was a matter of concern, the Minister said that "although the gross NPAs have increased at system level, the gross NPAs ratios of banks do not indicate any systemic vulnerability."

The Gross NPA of the PSBs at the March 2014 stood at Rs 2.27 lakh crore.

She further said that the latest Financial Stability Report states sector like infrastructure, iron and steel, textiles, mining and aviation services contributes significantly to the level of stressed advances.

In a separate response, Sitharaman said the amount of loan restructured rose more than 11-fold between 2010-11 and 2012-13.

At the end of 2010-11, the restructured loans stood at Rs Rs 6,614.40 crore that rose significantly to Rs 76,479.06 crore at the end of 2012-13.

"To address the issue of rich promoter and sick companies, RBI guidelines dates January 30, 2014 provides that the general principle of restructuring should be that the shareholders bear the first loss rather than the debt holders," she said.

With the principle in view and also to ensure more 'skin in the game' of promoters, Joint Lender Forum or Corporate Debt Restructuring (CDR) may consider options including possibility of transferring equity of the company by promoters to the lenders to compensate for their sacrifices, she added.